A Tester's Commitment

http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/652

James Bach has a good post on what testers commit to

Here's an excerpt:

I provide a service. You are an important client of that service. I am not satisfied unless you are satisfied.

I am not the gatekeeper of quality. I don’t “own” quality. Shipping a good product is a goal shared by all of us.

I will test your code as soon as I can after you deliver it to me. I know that you need my test results quickly (especially for fixes and new features).

I will strive to test in a way that allows you to be fully productive. I will not be a bottleneck.

I’ll make every reasonable effort to test, even if I have only partial information about the product.

I will learn the product quickly, and make use of that knowledge to test more cleverly.

I will test important things first, and try to find important problems. (I will also report things you might consider unimportant, just in case they turn out to be important after all, but I will spend less time on those.)

I will strive to test in the interests of everyone whose opinions matter, including you, so that you can make better decisions about the product.

I will write clear, concise, thoughtful, and respectful problem reports. (I may make suggestions about design, but I will never presume to be the designer.)

I will let you know how I’m testing, and invite your comments. And I will confer with you about little things you can do to make the product much easier to test.

I invite your special requests, such as if you need me to spot check something for you, help you document something, or run a special kind of test.

I will not carelessly waste your time. Or if I do, I will learn from that mistake.

Bugs and Battleship

I got this link from Peter Hall today, it's a great way to look at different ways we look for bugs.

http://blog.ezyang.com/2011/12/bugs-and-battleships/

Enjoy!

PCMM - Like CMM, but for people

There is lots of evidence that one of the major contributors to a successful software project is the right people with the right skills being motivated to perform well.

SEI has released (nearly 10 years ago) a method for managing this kind of management.

Check it out!

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01mm001.cfm

QA Tester Position in Oklahoma

This is a 6 month contract to hire opportunity. Looking for somebody to start December 12^th but the earlier the better. They are definitely looking to bring somebody on full time. The first project is in Massachusetts and the individual will need to be on site the first 2 weeks. If the person is not in OKC they can work remotely from home and come to OKC once a week. If they are in OKC they will work in the office.

·         Test Designer with Keyword experience preferably someone with web interface experience.

·         DB queries would be a plus as would C#, .NET experience.

·         Automation testing is the biggest requirement

·         Will be using Selenium so if somebody has any experience with Selenium that would be a huge bonus!

Contact Info:

Taylor Brecher

GDH Consulting, Inc.

405-948-9022 Office

405-290-7505 Fax

972-839-1841 Mobile

tbrecher@gdhconsulting.com

www.gdhit.com

Become a fan of GDH Consulting on Facebook

Re-imagining the Test Plan

Some folks got together to discuss the relative lack of utility of most test plans. Their idea is to tie in streams of data (tests, test results, bugs, issues, checkins, etc.) to provide an ongoing look at areas of risk for your application in a visual way.

This is by no means a usable product at the moment. However, the ideas are interesting. Read more here, join the discussion and be a part of this project!

http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2011/10/google-test-analytics-now-in-open.html

Being Geek - another book review

I've posted another book review on StickyMinds.com. This one is on 'Being Geek'

http://www.stickyminds.com/s.asp?F=S1362_BOOK_4

Javascript Code Coverage Tool

The Google Testing Blog has an entry on a tool to calculate how much of the javascript on a page has been covered.

Now you can get details on each script on the page and how much is left to test!

http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2011/10/scriptcover-makes-javascript-coverage.html

Time-Life Series on 'Understanding Computers' (circa 1989)

My brother-in-law brought these over for me. They were going to be thrown out at his work and he offered to take them off their hands.

The one that caught my eye was 'The Software Challenge'. It's essentially about Software Engineering and the tools and techniques used in software projects.

At the time, the big idea was CASE tools. Computer-Aided Software Engineering. There's a whole section on that idea as well as testing concepts such as boundary-value testing, positive testing, negative testing, code path coverage and more.

Filters of Experience

Filters are great things, until they aren't...

I use my experience to filter lots of things. For example, I won't get started on optimizing how my email is stored because I've done that and it ultimately takes more time to maintain than I get value out of. Additionally, I will go out of my way to meet the maintenance people in my building because knowing them can quickly get issues fixed when they arise.

This experience I've developed over years has allowed me to see nuances in everyday activities to try to maximize the benefit to me or others.

But these filters of experience also hold me back sometimes. My son had a school project that would take several hours to do and he waited until the last minute to do it. I looked at the clock after dinner the night before the assignment was due and concluded that given my son's available time, he couldn't have finished it and would have to turn it in late. I thought that even if it were done, it wouldn't be done well. I was wrong. While he could have turned in a more polished final product, he did finish it reasonably well and only a little after his normal bedtime.

So if you are new in your career:

• Look for those with experience to see if you can work better
• Don't let that experience hold you back if you have the desire to see it through (even if you end up being wrong to ignore experience, you'll have just built up some of your own)

If you are well established in your career.

• Look to the younger crowd for energy and new possibilities
• Be sure to voice your experience in a way that allows everyone to feel successful. (even if you end up being wrong, it won't be the first time)

What do you do if you need to test a system with little to no documentation?

You need to identify what sources of information exist. The common term is a 'Test Oracle'. The Test Oracles will tell you how the system is supposed to work, but unfortunately, they are known to conflict with each other.

This is an old article, but still very relevant on what forms Test Oracles take and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

http://www.softwarequalitymethods.com/Papers/OracleTax.pdf

 

(thanks Peter for remining me that this site has been too silent for too long)

 

TestAPI for Win32 and .NET applications

I heard about this today and it looks promising... http://testapi.codeplex.com/

According to the site :

"TestApi is a library of test and utility APIs that enables developers and testers to create testing tools and automated tests for .NET and Win32 applications. TestApi provides a set of common test building blocks -- types, data-structures and algorithms -- in a simple, layered, componentized and documented stack."

Post a comment if you have any experience with this.

Hybrid Manual/Automation Tests

I've had this idea before. Suppose you have a set of tests that are difficult to automate because some middle step needs either human interaction or would benefit from a human performing the validation.

Well, Amazon's Mechanical Turk is one option. Another option was just announced as well. With these tools, you can add in a human task to your automation tests to make your Manual / Automation hybrid tests.

So... Any tool authors out there that want to make this available?

Inspected by A-12345

(from http://www.qclabels.com/)

Every so often, I find a slip of paper in a new pair of jeans that reads "Inspected by 12" (or something similar). Then I realize that someone, or multiple someones, inspected this product for some level of quality before it was shipped.

What if you looked at the help menu entry for a particular feature and it would tell you who tested it? What do you think you'd notice? Would you attribute the good or bad quality of that feature with that tester's ability? If you were that tester, would you feel pride in a job well done?

I feel somewhat like I'm living 3Ms motto, "We don't make the products you use, we make the products you use better".

Structured Creativity Lessons?

I saw this book, published in 2007 called "Wreck This Journal". It is a series of journal entries where you are asked to basically demolish the book, one page at a time, in a very specific way.

The instructions include things like "Rub dirt on this page", "Paint with coffee", "Paste a picture here and change it"

It may seem totally random, but I expect that it will encourage creativity in a fun way.

Learn to Code With Friends

If you've wanted to learn how to write code, but didn't have a place to start. Check out http://www.codecademy.com/ . This is a way to learn to code where you are given feedback as you learn in a very intuitive way. You can also do this with friends to see how they are doing. Check it out!

Ow, I'm Too Safe!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/08/18/10197031.aspx

This is a short and funny story about being 'too safe'. Can we have 'too much quality' in the same way?

Robert's Rule of Risks

"When a risk manifests itself, it becomes an issue. For big issues, the real question is 'Was this from a known risk?' "

Is SmoothTeddy Really 'work-related'?

In the end, I came up with this banner as a sample for a 'logo contest' for our internal QA community. Let me give some background in how this came about.

I ran across 'Smooth Teddy' a few years ago as a drop-dead simple way to create interesting 3D figures that don't look like they came from a CAD system. Here is a bit more of the 3D 'bug' I was able to make. (Sure, it's not particularly 'buggy' but hopefully, you can see the scope of the things that can be done.)

If you end up using Smooth Teddy, be sure to read the documentation because some of the coolest features are not obvious. (The program itself is a bit unstable, so save often).

The remaining question is 'Is this 3D tool work-related'. Well, only if you want to allow people to find their way to learn. I'm certain it has nothing to do with the 'fun' factor of using the tool :)

Framework to Allow User to Recover Gracefully from Hung Applications

So some researchers were looking into how to get MS Word to recover when it gets hung and came up with a general framework to allow users to attempt to get hung applications unstuck.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/jolt-framework-lets-users-force-some-hung-programs-to-recover.ars

This is a great case of a truly useful tool that can be 'an enabler' for bad programming practices. Surely, this is a good tool for end-users. But developers providing this as a workaround for problematic code can be a bad strategy.

Removing Bias From Your Strategy

While this article is geared towards corporate strategy, many of the concepts can be applied to product strategy, test strategy, etc.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_case_for_behavioral_strategy_2551 (requires free registration)

Here are some of the tips provided.
- The process of developing the strategy is one of the largest contributors to success
- Change your 'angle of vision' to see the issue from different perspectives. For example, Apple is famous for fully developing multiple ideas for the same feature to come up with a single implementation that fully implements the new feature.
- In most organizations, simply expressing high confidence in a plan is enough to get it approved. However, that does not result in success. Approval should be based on a clear recognition of the uncertainty involved.
- Shake things up, such as setting 'stretch goals' that are not possible given the current ways of doing things. This can spark innovation and efficiencies.
- Call out 'Silo thinking'. If departments hold onto their own departmental interests at the expense of company interests, call it out.
- Allow for 'Safe Debate'. Group-think can elimnate dissent, but sometimes dissent is needed. The key is to be able to do it without personalizing it.

There are more interesting topics on this site. Look around and enjoy.